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A company involved with localising Japanese games for the US has publicly lamented the fact that US retailers refuse to carry games which insist on substituting Chinese cartoons for the sort of manly testosterone dripping beefcakes Americans apparently love so dearly.

Xseed, the localisers for Japanese RPG Zwei, report that “retailers aren’t too crazy about the cutesy graphics, which makes our job a little more difficult.”

In an earlier update they mourn the fact that US retailers apparently refuse to stock insufficiently manly games:

“We do take game requests, but games based on anime are very difficult to do – unless it’s a Dragon Ball or Naruto title, retailers refuse to carry them.”

Japanese publishers and US retailers seem to agree – American gamers simply hate anime.

It's Sankaku, take it with a grain of salt. That place is like The Onion with less humor and more porn.

Considering how Final Fantasy VII is probably one of the most popular console RPGs of all time and both the main protagonist and antagonist are bishonen-types, I don't see why anyone would think Western audiences want only Kenshiro clones for heroes.

Not to mention the sheer popularity of "cutesy" games among the casual-gaming crowd. PopCap didn't get as big as they did by being unpopular, after all--plus Plants vs. Zombies is pretty damn awesome.

Yeah, my favorite game, Valkyria Chronicles, kinda suffered under this spell. However, I simply refuse to believe that gamers hate anime. I'd say about 60% do hate it, though the 40% of us campaign and spread it everywhere we go.

Plus, I think synaesthetic is right, if such a game like Final Fantasy is able to get such renown and stuff, that's saying that some anime (or anime-esque) games are something everyone hates... I'm not believing that. With games like the Persona series and Valkyria Chronicles, which have been getting good reiviews, I think in the end, it's not so much as retailers refusing to have them, I think it's a failure of good advertising and marketing for the games. I'm telling you, I don't believe I've ever seen many commercials based on anime games...

But "US Retailers 'Don't Want Anime Games'"? Their losing a market to certain gamers. More like "US Retailers Are Jackasses."

Does this mean that...bleach looks gay!? Honestly, I highly doubt that they can refuse to distribute the games; they're not in a spot of power, the games sell millions in Asia, giving companies enough funds to open their own business in the US, thus literally killing the US retailers' job. Just what are they thinking?

When I bought Persona 3 Portable at my local EB Games store, the Clerk asked:
A: My age (lmao wtf)
B: Told / "Warned" me that it's a "Weird crazy shit japanese game" and If I was looking for a "good" game, I should try God of War.

When I bought Persona 3 Portable at my local EB Games store, the Clerk asked:
A: My age (lmao wtf)
B: Told / "Warned" me that it's a "Weird crazy shit japanese game" and If I was looking for a "good" game, I should try God of War.

Seriously, I should have socked him in the mouth.

wow, I personally like the Persona games, and if someone calls it a "weird crazy shit Japanese game" I would tell him "Well I have different interests and I already beated God of War, so just hurry up and check this game out for me."

(But I personally get lost in the game to many times for me to say its an absolute 10/10)

The "retailers" haven't done their homework if they make the sweeping generalization that "all gamers hate the cute". But it isn't surprising that they fail that way. Frankly, most anime fans I know are gamers... and most gamers are at least tolerant of the cute if it has good gameplay.

I suspect they're having the same myopic view problem that television is having --- they're racing to dominant an ever-shrinking group of eyeballs who happen to be loud. A better title might have been "US Retailers are stupid because they don't do their homework before making decisions"

I haven't played many anime games, but from the screen caps on youtube of popular ones like clannad or kanon or School days, those at least totally don't appeal to me, even though I liked the anime itself.
I'm not a big gamer in the first place, but when it comes to titles that interest me, I tend to gravitate away from games that come from movies. It would probably be the same for anime.

but the pokemon games are ever popular, even though I can't see why...

I haven't played many anime games, but from the screen caps on youtube of popular ones like clannad or kanon or School days, those at least totally don't appeal to me, even though I liked the anime itself.
I'm not a big gamer in the first place, but when it comes to titles that interest me, I tend to gravitate away from games that come from movies. It would probably be the same for anime.

but the pokemon games are ever popular, even though I can't see why...

I still question myself on how in the world pokemon games are popular, and I agree with you that I cannot see any reason why, unless the players on those games are below the age of 13.

I still question myself on how in the world pokemon games are popular, and I agree with you that I cannot see any reason why, unless the players on those games are below the age of 13.

I really don't understand how you are making that assumption. Pokemon games require much more strategy to play them correctly than any 13 year old has. I play Pokemon and I'm 16 and can see why (and am quite glad) they are as popular as they are. The Pokemon games aren't really based off on the anime as much as other anime games (ie cutesy) would be which is why they outshine.

How about "US retailers ARE stupid!" I would love to get my hands on Code Geass Lost Colors! And recently found a Ghost in the Shell game at a flea market!@_@!
I still can't figure out why anime based anything has such a hard time over here. If 40,000 plus attend anime expo, that should tell retailers something!

I really don't understand how you are making that assumption. Pokemon games require much more strategy to play them correctly than any 13 year old has. I play Pokemon and I'm 16 and can see why (and am quite glad) they are as popular as they are. The Pokemon games aren't really based off on the anime as much as other anime games (ie cutesy) would be which is why they outshine.

Now that you explained it detailed like, I must apologize for any mockery that was put on my last message.

Also I would love to see a Code Geass: Lost Colors, just watched a few bits from someone on youtube and pray that it would ever reach English translations.

The "retailers" haven't done their homework if they make the sweeping generalization that "all gamers hate the cute". But it isn't surprising that they fail that way. Frankly, most anime fans I know are gamers... and most gamers are at least tolerant of the cute if it has good gameplay.

I suspect they're having the same myopic view problem that television is having --- they're racing to dominant an ever-shrinking group of eyeballs who happen to be loud. A better title might have been "US Retailers are stupid because they don't do their homework before making decisions"

Considering the developers this article (as shady as it is) describes, it's actually somewhat understandable that places like GameStop and Wal-Mart would refuse to stock licensed games based on anime series other than things like Bleach or Naruto.

They don't think they'll sell. And really, do you honestly believe (non pornographic) VNs would sell well in America, outside of the hardcore otaku crowd?

Not likely. I don't even like VNs myself--I love a good story in a game, but there has to be some game there or I'm just gonna go pick up a real book. The adventure game genre is already long-dead in this country and VNs are even less interactive.

I don't actually think the article is talking about jRPGs and other "normal" genres with anime-styled artwork. We already know that those games do rather well.

Since Bleach and Naruto are very loved in the U.S, just like synaesthetic said, that is probably the only reason people would ever buy a game based from an anime, any other anime and people will have no clue what it is (Since most people from the U.S do not watch any other animes besides those aired on TV) making the sale-profit for any other anime game worthless.

A VN without any (action, movement, etc, etc) will just make the common U.S population go bored and just throw it away when they find out all they can do is make choices, its like reading a long book that you recently payed $9 for, but the only alternative is that you can make different endings in the book happen by choosing certain choice paths.

Aye, the problem with the article is that it is really UNinformative. It waves its arms about what types of games they're referring to. Some of the popular games for various platforms are definitely "cute" (*cough* Mario *cough* Zelda *cough*).

It annoys that more and more "news" turns out to be hot air and fluff when dissected. Bad reporting, no research, no analysis, murky grammar.....

It's Sankaku, take it with a grain of salt. That place is like The Onion with less humor and more porn.

But the Onion is actually entertaining, and it doesn't even pretend to be real journalism.

I get why retailers wouldn't stock dating sims and there is that stigma against "anime-style" stuff but as for the "Americans only want testosterone-leaden games" thing... meh, it's not even worth the brain effort to pick apart what's wrong with the Sankaku article. T_T